Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Meanwhile, in Bizarroland...

The folks at Media Matters are whining about CNN's biased coverage of the Massachusetts election because, you know, the media's just a bunch of neocon puppets. The best stuff, as usual, is in the comments:

This guy probably thinks Hillary and Bloomberg are conservative and Barack's a moderate. I watched about ten minutes of the CNN panel myself, and left the room, announcing "I haven't heard a single true utterance out of any of these people yet. Call me back in if they start discussing events in this dimension."

Look, Mr. Media Matters Commenter, the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative" have become meaningless when used to relate to party politics in this country. Nowadays we just have the Party of Big Government and the Party of Even Bigger Government and the easiest way of telling them apart is that one of them doesn't like abortion and gay cooties.

The GOP IS the party of "smaller" Government .... in the same way that a Panzer Mk IV IS "smaller" than a Panzer Mk VI (Tiger B) ..... that matters very little to folks that get run over by either. It all comes down to whose Stormtoopers you want to shoot at.....

Though given my druthers, I'd rather face an enemy equipped with the Tigers - they'll break down way before thay can run me over.

The GOP is still the only hope for freedom and rolling back the statist society that has developed about us.

What is important is the platform of each party. Just as there is no anti-science plank in the GOP platform, there is no Jesus plank in the GOP platform.

Some GOP politicians and activists happen to be Christians, this upsets some who believe that they are the only higher power in the universe or have mommy and daddy issues. Some Dem politicians and activists happen to be Jews, but for some odd reason no one complains about this.

Christians should call themselves Jews for Jesus in order to avoid all the bigotry so we can get down to the business of destroying the Welfare State for everyone's benefit.

"The GOP is still the only hope for freedom and rolling back the statist society that has developed about us."

Are we living in the same 'verse, I wonder?

The last Administration created a whole new Department and the created a whole new spendy entitlement program ..... not to mention "No Child Left Behind" :

What, Exactly, about the last 8 years could be construed by any stretch of the imagination as being from "The Party of Smaller Government and Personal Responsibility?????

I voted for Bush (Only because he was better than Gore- NOT because I thought he was GOOD, just not as BAD as Algore.), but if it were not for my children, I would vote for Obama, in the hopes that his bloated Government Bolotomus would collapse under it's own weight sooner than the GOP version.....

If, as you say, "the GOP is our only hope for freedom" ..... then Freedom's Day is in it's evening, and the remaining hours are going to be pretty cold and cheerless.

1) A Democratic Party indistinguishable from the British Labour Party.

2) A Republican Party that has some conservatives in it, and is desperate enough to listen to the Tea Party types (witness Massachusetts) and bend their way a certain amount.

3) All other options, including third parties, plotting armed resistance (futile against modern technology and the fact that any group larger than two has an FBI informant in it), sitting around bitching, or waiting for Jesus.

A codicil of number 3d is demanding some impossible degree of ideological purity from a candidate/messiah. The purer the ideology, the fewer people agree with it.

I concider myself a conservative, although I don't mind a fair pistol permit system (in a shall issue state)and mandatory hunter safety programs.

Even George Washington didn't hand out muskets to the village idiot. You earned the right through mandatory militia drill (mandatory, as in fines or jail time if you didn't show up), and the wierdos weren't allowed in the militia.

You might disagree with me, but you still need my vote to stop the people who would take away all firearms completely.

I think abortion is a sad and ugly business, but the first thing you are taught in NCO school is to never give an order that won't be obeyed. You waste time talking, and break down trust in leadership, losing unit cohesion.

Make it illegal tomorrow, and middle class girls who get "caught short" will hop on a plane to Mexico, Canada, or the Bahamas.

Welfare mothers will continue making little payment sponges where they are allowed, or squat on knitting needles in dirty alleys where it isn't financially remunerative, costing us more in medical payments. All we will get out of it is ineffective anti-abortion cops sucking more tax dollars from us.

Again, you might disagree, but we have to find a neutral ground somewhere to the right of the sociopaths running the Democratic Party.

The Republicans were a basically conservative party until they won control of Congress in 1994. For the next several years (Contract with America time), they continued in that mold.

Unfortunatly, they succumbed to buying votes after Gingrich was blackmailed out of office, turning into Republicrats. They differed from the other side of the isle only in being generally soft on firearms controls and a bit firmer on military responsibilities.

But their fall from grace was never complete, and it only goes back 8 or 10 years. They can still be influenced, still co-opted by conservative America.

The Democrats are dirty clean through, with an unbroken history of medieval liege lord/obedient serf mentality going back to Tammany Hall in 1840's New York, which became the model for every other Democratic machine in urban America.

If you say "All is lost, let's give up now", then all is lost. The left took our country away from us in incremental steps, and never gave up trying, despite setbacks like Reagan, or the increase in wealth during the late 40's-early 60's.

Give the Pelosicrats and their puppet Barry a serious drubbing in November, them find someone personable and center-right (like Brown) to unite behind in 2012, and we can get this place back to at least 1990 in lifestyle, and perhaps someday a bit earlier than that.

But if we disengage, we're doomed. I thought the Tea Party types were well intentioned but ineffective. I was wrong, and I'm joining. There's hope for this place yet.

It took a total incompetent like Carter to give us Reagan. It takes a jack-ass like Obama to give us.....?

Yeah, well so do I -- the " . . . give them money . . . " part, I mean.

At the point of a gun.

Nina Totenberg, Corey Flintoff, Steve Inskeep, Bob Edwards & Co. get to be Progressive tools on the public dime. The Party Organ of HopeyChangitude, distinguishable from Gostelradio in no particular other than that the message is the same without regard to which party is in power.

Now for a little thought experiment: Imagine that Fox News was similarly a public utility. Think our "betters" would be tripping over each other trying to find a way to defund it?

SB, I am a conservative Christian in my personal life and personal values, but I recognize the difference between private values freely chosen vs. the imposition of these values by law. For instance, I don't do porn - but I generally oppose laws to make porn illegal. I don't drink alcohol, but I would oppose any attempt to make it illegal. I don't do drugs, but I think the war on drugs is a waste of time, money, and liberty.I don't think the Republican leadership is with me on this. Too many of the religious conservatives who are influential in the Republican party lean way too far toward the religious statist side for me. And this is coming from someone who IS a religious conservative.

We are speaking of parties, not candidates. George W. Bush was not the party platform and is no longer President..."

Right. I'm speaking of the party of Gingrich and Lott; the party that had the legislative reins from '94 to '06 and did nothing... nothing... to, what were the words again? Oh, yeah "roll back the tide of statism."

I know you think the Elephant still loves you, but I don't believe you when you say that trunk-shaped shiner came from walking into a door.

Yes, Newty broke and ran in '95 like the Confederate Army. That is not the fault of the Republican platform. There was nothing in the Republican platform about running away from the Media like a bunch of schoolgirls.

Today the battlefield is different. Big Media is nearly off the board.

If the Republicans do not roll back statism, who will? Perhaps all the Libertarians in Congress?

Let's count them, it won't take long at all.

There are disinctions between the parties. The notion that there are not comes from Bossy Bears who want everything and want it now.

I agree there are some distinctions between D and R; some of which are actually approaching the verge of non-triviality. For instance, here in Indiana, we have R state legislators who keep throwing up bills to protect/extend carry privileges (I call them that because they're still not treating RKBA as a right), and a D party who keeps blocking these bills. So, yeah, some differences. And I do vote R more often than not.

But "roll back statism?" Please.

Your loyalty to the party platform is touching. Too bad the Rs don't show the same loyalty. At this point, I'd have to say a platform is more the ideology a party decides to pay lip service to than anything they actually intend to carry out.

I know they pander to small government and fiscal responsibility. But how seriously am I supposed to take that when their actions constantly betray those principles?

"For instance, here in Indiana, we have R state legislators who keep throwing up bills to protect/extend carry privileges (I call them that because they're still not treating RKBA as a right), and a D party who keeps blocking these bills."

Yeah, well ..... here in Nebraska, we have R state legisators who keep throwing up bills to protect/extend Carry priviledges (ditto), and an R legislator as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee who keeps blocking/attempts to block these bills (and write more stupid gun laws!), and a State Republican Party that just thinks that turd is just the Bee's knees.....

I am a TEA party guy, and I went to Washington last September 12th. I am less than interested in what a politician (of any stripe) wants to DO. I am all ears about what they want to UNDO.

The Confederate Army did not "Break and Run." In actual fact they were winning through most of the war years. The union was only able to win by committing what are now considered war crimes (Sherman's March) and the blockade which denied the Confederacy the industrial products that are required to prosecute a war ( arm and munitions).

The relative parties of American Politics are virtually indistinguishable. I really think its time to scrap it all and start over, including the lessons we have learned from 200 years of failed political experiments. The only way to regain lost and surrendered liberties is to forcefully reset the government. As always, if you can show through historical example when any government that has taken any power and has willingly (without force) given it up again, I will cheerfully recant my position.

Historically, the most effective way to get a new political party going in the Big Game, is to hijack an EXISTING major party with your platform. From within.

We're FAR more likely to see a "Republican" party that is basically libertarian in nature in my lifetime (and yours) than we are to see Congress and or the White House full of politicians with (L) behind their name.

The prospects of a Democratic party that is effectively libertarian in nature is less likely, as "spineless" is easier to overcome than the hard core socialist bedrock of the current political party -- it took about 70 years for closet Marxists to move from a "major influence" into "total domination" of the donkey, but it happened.

One problem with becoming a major party is that you will INVARIABLY have to shed teh mantle of exclusivity and actually make political compromises to gather enough voters to your cause. "Legal hookers and vending machine blow" may just have to wait until the OTHER party starts stepping up to the libertarian-esque plate in response.

Of course, the libertarians who want it all RIGHT NOW are convinced that I'm just saying, "Honest, officer, he's all right when he sobers up -- I'll press charges NEXT time, for sure."

No, the general way that political parties gain Major status is more like, "Party A gets infilitrated and morphs, Party B either morphs along with them to maintain parity, or dies. If Party B dies, expect Party A to split into Party A & C, to resume the Two Party Tango all over again."

"I know you think the Elephant still loves you, but I don't believe you when you say that trunk-shaped shiner came from walking into a door."

[snerk] I knew the GOP disliked me when I got Mel Martinez as a Senator. All doubt was taken away when LeMiuex was put in as a Crist seat warmer. Not to mention McCain, Steele, the constant fundraising flyers...

You know, next GOP fundraising flyer I get, I'm sending back with a note: "I gave your money to the Libertarians."

WV: stsicks-- our new patron saint of health care. "St. Sicks, intercede for me at the death panel, do not abandon me..."